The scene in our house at the moment resembles something out of a Victorian re-enactment; nappies drying over the backs of chairs arranged around the kitchen fire. It has been raining without ceasing for a week, and that which looks romantically historical on the page of a primary school history book, in real life is enough of a pain in the butt to challenge my resolve to use cloth nappies, particularly in our big unheated old barn of a house with its holes in the walls. As long as we can dry six a day we can just about keep the show on the road, but Joni has completely run out of dry footwear… luckily he prefers bare feet in the house, and his penchant for splashing in puddles means that he might just as well start off wet outside anyway. Still, unlike our grandparents, we do have a washing machine, and unlike some neighbourhoods of this city, our road is tarmacked so at least we can leave the house without sinking into a foot of muddy slurry. Our friends in the hamlet have to negotiate three kilometres of mud between them and the nearest asphalt so even if it stopped raining now they wouldn’t be able to go anywhere anytime soon.
Meanwhile life chugs along; between the endless round of feeding, changing, and finding space for yet more damp washing, I’m also back working with the guys from the hamlet and the village for a couple of hours in the afternoons when it’s dry enough to get there.
Quotes from the experiential learning of a budding scientist… “I was just eating the ants; they’re very tasty” (I never managed to find out whether he meant it)
“If you eat soil you get black teeth, a black tongue, a black tummy and black poo” (Impressed by his understanding of the digestive process… but how does he know?)
“Joni when we see Sergio next we need to ask him to cut your hair” “No we don’t, I’m going to do it all by myself…”